Redlands police have arrested a former high school drama teacher on suspicion of having sex with two underage students and possession of child pornography, making him the third former teacher in the school district to be charged with sexual abuse in the past five years.

Former Redlands High School teacher Joel Everett Chandler Koonce, 27, of LaVerne, has been arrested on suspicion of molesting two students from 2016 through 2018 and producing child pornography. He was fired by Redlands Unified School District last November and is the latest former teacher of the school district to be accused of sexually abusing students. Police believe there are more victims, and are encouraging anyone who may have been molested by Koonce to come forward.

Joel Everett Chandler Koonce, a La Verne resident who began teaching at Redlands High School in September 2016, was taken into custody just after 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Ontario. He was booked at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of sodomy with a person under the age of 18, sex with a foreign object, oral copulation with a person under the age of 18, sex with a minor and possession of child pornography.

Koonce, 27, was being held without bail, but it was not immediately clear why bail was not offered. He is scheduled for arraignment Tuesday in San Bernardino Superior Court, according to jail records.

Koonce allegedly engaged in sex acts with the two female students from 2016, beginning when they were 16 years old, through 2018. Koonce was suspended by Redlands Unified School District in October 2017 and fired a month later, but the alleged sexual relationships continued into 2018, police said in a news release.

Redlands police believe there could be other victims, and encourage anyone with information to contact Detective Elyzabeth Green at 909-335-4714.

Performance issues surfaced first

In a news release, Redlands Unified on Friday said problems with Koonce began in July 2017 with performance issues that had nothing to do with sexual misconduct, then escalated in October 2017, when an employee reported Koonce for alleged misconduct involving a student. A report was filed with child protective services, then the Redlands Police Department, and Koonce was suspended. But, at the time, the investigation could not corroborate any criminal wrongdoing.

The following month, Koonce was fired.

“Based on the fact that the district had lost faith in Koonce to properly carry out his duties and responsibilities, and the fact that he was still within his probationary period as defined by the Education Code, the decision was made to release him from his contract with the district in November of 2017,” the news release said.

Despite Koonce’s termination, the allegations against him did not cease. In July 2018, a school district employee heard a rumor that Koonce was still engaging in inappropriate sexual conduct with students, and a second mandated report was submitted again to child protective services, prompting another investigation, according to the school district.

Last month, one of the alleged victims came forward with new allegations, prompting a follow-up investigation by police, and a second victim was discovered, leading to Koonce’s arrest, police said in a news release.

Attorney Morgan Stewart, of the Irvine law firm Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, said he represents four alleged victims of Koonce, including the two he was arrested for allegedly abusing, but has yet to file a legal claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, against the school district.

‘Acted like a friend’

He said Koonce acted more like a student than a teacher, which he used to his advantage.

“He acted like a friend — hung out with the students, would help them ditch class, would tell them secrets, would do drugs with them, would buy them drugs,” Stewart said.

Stewart recently settled sex abuse lawsuits involving three former Redlands Unified teachers and eight victims or alleged victims for $15.7 million, the largest payout in the school district’s history to end sex abuse litigation.

In the past five years, Redlands Unified has paid out a total of $21.7 million to Stewart’s firm to settle sex abuse lawsuits.

Koonce’s arrest is the latest development in a 14-month investigation by the Southern California News Group into sexual abuse of students at Redlands Unified School District, where administrators have been slow to report suspected sexual abuse of students to police and child protective services.

A review of more than 2,000 pages of police reports, depositions and internal school district records showed a pattern of school district administrators failing to address warning signs of sexual abuse and inappropriate conduct between students and teachers. The most glaring examples were former Redlands High School teacher Kevin Patrick Kirkland and former Citrus Valley High School teacher Laura Whitehurst.

In August 2016, Redlands Unified settled a civil lawsuit with one of Whitehurst’s victims, whose child she bore, for $6 million. That settlement came four months after Kirkland’s arrest. Under a plea agreement, Kirkland was convicted in June 2017 of molesting four female Redlands High School students from June 2014 through May 2016. He was released from custody the day he entered his plea, after serving only less than 14 months in jail.

Lessons learned at Redlands Unified

Officials in Redlands Unified appear to have learned lessons from the Kirkland and Whitehurst cases.

Not only was Koonce reported to authorities as required by the state’s mandated reporter law, but the school district even submitted notice to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. According to the commission’s website, Koonce still holds a valid single-subject credential to teach English.

In light of the rampant sexual abuse at the district in recent years, it has launched a campaign, “See Something, Hear Something, Sense Something, Say Something,” and recently released a poster the district has encouraging all of its schools to post in common areas. The poster, also disseminated via the district’s mobile app, includes a 24-hour CPS hotline to call and report suspected abuse: 1-800-827-8724.

On Nov. 13, Redlands Unified’s Board of Education will review and act on the final version of a new professional conduct policy for all staff.

“Cases like this are truly reprehensible, but it is important to be reminded that the unconscionable actions of a few of our staff who violate our trust does not diminish the trust we have in our 1,800 employees who continue to perform in the best interests of our students,” Redlands Unified Superintendent Mauricio V. Arellano said in Friday’s news release.

Joe Nelson is an award-winning investigative reporter who has worked for The Sun since November 1999. He started as a crime reporter and went on to cover a variety of beats including courts and the cities of Colton, Highland and Grand Terrace. He has covered San Bernardino County since 2009. Nelson is a graduate of California State University Fullerton. In 2014, he completed a fellowship at Loyola Law School's Journalist Law School program.

Scott Schwebke is an investigative reporter for the Register and the Southern California News Group. A native of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he was previously a breaking news and multimedia reporter for the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner. Scott has also worked at newspapers in Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia. A graduate of Brigham Young University, Scott is the Register's 2014 Beat Reporter of the Year. He has won more than two dozen journalism awards including the N.C. Associated Press News Council’s O. Henry Award for a lengthy narrative on the brutal home invasion slaying of a nurse and a Katie Award from the Dallas Press Club for a feature story on a UFO investigator. Scott has covered everything from methamphetamine trafficking cops to hurricanes and has accompanied police on undercover drug buys. He also provided an award winning, eyewitness account of the execution of a North Carolina death row inmate and obtained an exclusive interview with the ringleader of a brazen escape from the Orange County Jail involving three maximum security inmates. Scott was also part of the Register’s investigative team that produced the year-long, award winning Rehab Riviera series, examining problems in Southern California’s drug rehabilitation industry. Having spent two years living in England including Liverpool, he is an avid Beatles fan and memorabilia collector. He and his wife, Lisa, reside in Anaheim.